Reconstructing and Analyzing a Jewish Genealogical Network: The Case of the Roman Ghetto (17th-18th Centuries) – Abstract, Final Report, Dataset

Dr. Michaël Gasperoni

ABSTRACT

The aim of our research is to entirely reconstruct the Jewish Roman population in the long term, to analyze its matrimonial networks, to set up a genealogical dataset accessible to the scientific community and the general public and to present the methodological tools that can serve future studies. This work will contribute at increasing our knowledge on social, genealogical and matrimonial practices within the Jewish populations in the period of the ghettoization based on the statistical analysis of kinship relations reconstructed in the genealogical dataset that is at the center of this project. Whilst the history of the Jewish family has been the topic of a couple of studies, there still is no systematical and exhaustive investigation into the matrimonial practices of the Jewish population in the modern period, mirrored with the rules of Jewish marriage law and patrimonial transmission. Thereby, we will focus in particular on the role of women in the patrimonial transmission and on migratory phenomena that can provoke matrimonial exchanges between different communities. Questioning the impact the ghettoization had on social structures and practices will hence be the guiding line of our research, using genealogy and the history of the family as a key of analysis for the Jewish history.